nwnfandomcom-20200213-history
Talk:Spells.2da (contents)
Old version This is an old version, and does not reflect any changes from patches or expansion packs. Martigan 01:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC) An anomaly? The version of this 2da in my 2dasource.zip shows a conflict with the des_crft_spells.2da for War Cry. The spells.2da lists Innate Level of 4 vs. the des_crft_spells.2da Innate Level of 3. I see in the table here that War Cry Innate is 3 so now I am totally confused as to what the game is using. I am running a v1.69-patched Diamond NWN so should have the latest 2da's loaded. My main concern is how the game processes crafting (i.e. which Innate Level is it actually applying to the bard casting action?). If there is a conflict between common attributes like this, does one 2da take precedence over another? This is the only anomaly like this I've found but is this type of conflict normal?--Iconclast 14:26, March 12, 2010 (UTC) * Spells.2da defines spells for the game engine; the innate level listed here is used in most cases. Des_crft_spells.2da defines the innate level as used by the brew potion, craft wand, and scribe scroll feats only. As a general rule of thumb, each des_*.2da file is an auxiliary data file for a particular script, not something directly used by a large number of scripts or by the game engine itself. (OK, the spell hook is technically used by every spell script, but I'm considering that "indirect" here.) : : By the way, being at version 1.69 is not that closely related to viewing the latest .2da's as the latest .2da's can be downloaded from the BioWare website (miscellaneous downloads), and people viewing the .2da's actually used by their game (through NWN Explorer, usually) sometimes forget to look at the patched versions. --The Krit 21:18, March 12, 2010 (UTC) :: You talked me into it, Krit ;) I had noticed those downloads and was tempted to check them against those on my machine, but was dragging my feet (assuming the patches always overwrote all the source data... be patient, I'm in way over my head already). Maybe now I'll find that elusive domains.2da I've seen mentioned but have been unable to locate anywhere 8) And naturally, tx for defining the pecking order for spell 2da's.--Iconclast 22:01, March 12, 2010 (UTC) 2DA Metamagic Values vs. Actual I was planning to compile a list of the metamagic feats available for each spell for a group of interested players and figured the 2da was the easiest and most foolproof resource to use to do something like this by just converting the hex values into columns for each metamagic feat. However, when I realized that all the level 9 spells (except for Bigby's Crushing Hand which uses 0xFF and cannot be converted into any feat combo value) reference a viable set of applicable metamagic feats, I have become skeptical whether I can now avoid actual in-game testing to gather the information I want. For example, the first Level 9 spell I encountered in the 2da list was Energy Drain which specifies 0x3d for applicable metamagic, which would mean all metamagic feats except Extended Spell should apply, which we all know is not the case. So I guess if the 2da data is indicative of what happens in-game, an additional calculation would need to be done to determine whether any of the slots would be available to be used for each spell defined by its metamagic column, which for Level 9 spells would always be false. Somehow I feel like I am making this more complicated than it needs to be but would have been undaunted if the Level 9 spells all specified either 0xff like Crushing Hand, 0x00 or some other null convention. What's up with this folks? I would appreciate some education in this area, please. --Iconclast 03:07, April 11, 2012 (UTC) * The value in the .2da column indicates what metamagic the game engine will allow to be used with the spell. So, for example, a spell with "0x3d" in that column is allowed by the game engine to be cast with all metamagic feats except extend spell. This is the first stage of the process, and you've grasped it well enough. (Although you might want to see what happens if you flag a lower-level spell as metamgic "0xff" -- if BioWare treats that as a true bit field, "0xff" would not be a null value but an everything value.) : The second stage is that the metamagic-ed spell needs a spell slot. This is where the level 9 spells fall out of contention, so to speak. Even if the game engine allows a level 9 spell to be cast stilled (for example), the stilled version cannot be cast until it is first assigned to a level 10 spell slot. Since there are no level 10 spell slots, the stilled version cannot be so assigned, so it cannot actually be cast. So for your table, yes, you should do something like remove still spell from all the level 9 spells in your listing, empower spell from all the level 8 and 9 spells, etc. (This is actually a Good Thing in programming -- define the metamagic data even in the cases when it will not be used. That way if something changes -- maybe the spell gets given to a new class with a lower spell level -- the spells would not need to be retrofitted. The fewer assumptions made when compiling data, the more robust the system is.) : A third stage that occurs is in implementation. This is not an issue for quicken, silent, and still, but for empower, extend, and maximize, there needs to be script support for these metamagics to have an effect (other than increasing the spell slot level). This might not be worth accounting for in your listings, but you should be aware of it since it might come up later. --The Krit 03:56, April 11, 2012 (UTC) Completeness of Dummied Out Spells There are quite a number of dummied out spells: Calm Emotions, Sphere of Chaos, and most notably the anti-alignment spells for Law and Chaos (Cloak of Chaos, Shield of Law, Magic Circle against Law/Chaos, and Protection from Law/Chaos). I remember there were icons for them; the anti-Law spells featured a crown while the anti-Chaos spells featured an inverted crown in the same manner that anti-Good featured an ankh and anti-Evil featured a skull. I never found out if the scripts they called were still available. Do these warrant a seperate entry in the Non-class skills section or just a footnote somewhere? 17:20, December 14, 2012 (UTC) * The scripts do exist, but all they do is apply visual effects, or cause the caster to say that they are casting a magic circle, or write a warning in the log (for sphere of chaos -- a comment in the script states "This spell was cut from NWN and would cause stack underflows if you use it...") So if you want to make these spells available, you will need new scripts. (I did an implementation of sphere of chaos a while ago.) There really is not enough to say the spells exist; there are just a couple of unused resources, which is far from unheard of. --The Krit (talk) 19:22, December 14, 2012 (UTC)